This report is one of a series exploring the way several important school districts across the country are dealing with the problems of separate and unequal education for minority students. The working of the choice and magnet school program of the Montgomery County (Maryland) public schools, a system that has never been under a court order to desegregate and in which desegregation has always been under the complete control of local officials, is profiled. Montgomery County is an affluent and highly educated community. A variety of data-collection methods were used to examine levels of segregation and concentrated poverty and the effectiveness of the county's 14 elementary magnets, 2 middle school, and 1 high school magnet, as well as to analyze schools' transfer requests and achievement trends. The study shows that choice plans and policies that are not well supervised and lack some key components to promote equal access may create merely the appearance of solving racial problems, and they may actually foster growing segregation over time. Some policy options for equal education are explored. Seventeen tables present study findings. (SLD)